SRQ Media Group will hold an election analysis at its next Where The Votes Are event on Nov. 19 at the SRQ Media Group headquarters. RSVP to jacob.ogles@srqmediagroup.com if you would like to attend this event.

The results of the general election a week ago show more to local political observers than a preference for who should be governor. Armed with a nominee with strong local roots and a sophisticated absentee voter operation, Democrats came as close to winning the county in a governor's contest as they have in decades. But in the end, Republicans still won.

Leaders from both parties found much to be proud about in the general election results, but it was the Grand Old Party than won the major prizes, including carrying the county for Gov. Rick Scott in his successful re-election bid and in the election of a Republican candidate, Bridget Ziegler, in a nonpartisan School Board election that came down to the wire.

"We knew we were in for a real struggle, and we were lucky and fortunate to get our voters out," said Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota.

Rita Ferrandino, chairman of the Sarasota Democratic Party, said she was pleased to see the difference between Scott and Democratic candidate Charlie Crist was just 4,974, less than the race four years when Scott beat Democrat Alex Sink by a slimmer margin statewide than this year but won Sarasota by 6,538 votes.

"We would have been happier and preferred to have won Sarasota for Democrats, but we were proud given the onslaught that we held on," Ferrandino said. Outperforming the results of past elections, she said, showed the local Democratic Party did its part in getting voters out in support of Crist, and noted turnout in Sarasota was much higher than liberal bastions such as Broward and Miami-Dade.

Indeed votes cast before Election Day, an area where party apparatus plays a key role through voter drives and get-out-the-vote systems, went to Crist, and for Ken Marsh, the Democrat running for School Board. In the governor's contest, Crist recieved 27,265 absentee votes to Scott's 24516 absentee votes. Scott won in early voting (15,347 to 14,006) and of course on election day (38,808 to 32,426), but the roughly half of ballots cast before election day itself broke for Crist.

Gruters said that trends were revered by election day thanks to a fervent volunteer push and through the support of donors who spent a great deal in the last 14 days of the race to ensure Republicans came out on top. 

Gruters also said having a full slate of candidates from governor through county commission and even into charter review board posts helped one another. "You run as a team," he said. "I knew some of these races would be real tight, and I was surprised we were able to sweep the county."

Of course, Ferrandino said candidate recruitment can prove challenging in a still-red county during a mid-term election where Republican voters tend to perform better than Democratic ones. "It's just very hard to find high-quality candidates when you look at actual numbers and results," she said. "That's why we are so proud of the candidates who did step up to the plate."

The next major election pitting the parties formally against one another will be November 2016, and Democrats perform better in presidential elections. Gruters said he has considered the county a battleground since Barack Obama came just 211 votes behind John McCain here during the 2008 presidential election.

SRQ Media Group will hold an election analysis at its next Where The Votes Are event on Nov. 19 at the SRQ Media Group headquarters. RSVP to jacob.ogles@srqmediagroup.com if you would like to attend this event.